


act like you love me

by marcasite



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Jealousy, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Post-Battle of Scarif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 09:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcasite/pseuds/marcasite
Summary: It’s been two months since Scarif and Jyn has been trying to figure out what her relationship with Cassian is, if anything at all. Oh, Cassian is always thoughtful, asking how she is and joining them at meals when he can. Sometimes, she believes that he feels the same about her that she does about him. She’ll catch averted glances, small smiles, and a gentle hand to the shoulder when he leaves for a meeting and it sends a spark coiling to her stomach.





	act like you love me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thereigning_lorelai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereigning_lorelai/gifts).



> Does 2600 words count as a ficlet? For @thereigning-lorelai who was a winner in my birthday week giveaway and asked for jealous!Jyn

It’s been two months since Scarif and Jyn has been trying to figure out what her relationship with Cassian is, if anything at all. Oh, Cassian is always thoughtful, asking how she is and joining them at meals when he can. Sometimes, she believes that he feels the same about her that she does about him. She’ll catch averted glances, small smiles, and a gentle hand to the shoulder when he leaves for a meeting and it sends a spark coiling to her stomach. 

But then there are the days that his manner is brusque and his face as impassive as the day she met him. She hates those days, when Cassian the spy emerges and he has even less to say than his usual quiet self. It’s not like they have deep and meaningful conversations, there isn’t much time, but Jyn knows she is getting closer to being brave enough to try.

The problem is, she is just not quite sure if Cassian feels anything at all for her beyond a comraderie, a friendship and wonders how much she is risking by wanting more.

 

-

 

One rare afternoon, Cassian joins them for a quick lunch and Jyn is secretly pleased. She is going to muster up her courage and today is the day she is going to talk to him, to ask him if there was something...more between them and if he even felt a little something for her beyond friendship. This is the afternoon she is finally going to be brave enough to say something.  

But the afternoon has other plans for her.

Someone Jyn does not recognize approaches their table and leans close to Cassian. “Hey, Lieutenant Morales is back on base. Draven wanted you to know. She’s asking for you in med bay.”

Jyn turns to Cassian and watches as his face turns ashen and eyes widen in shock. He sways slightly and nods quickly, abruptly stands up and leaves his meal behind, uneaten. Jyn watches in shock as he leaves without a backwards glance. Bodhi looks over at her, “Strange. Who is Lieutenant Morales?”

Jyn just shakes her head, “No idea.”

 

-

 

She sets out to find out who the mysterious Lieutenant Morales is but either no one really knows or no one wants to tell her who she is. Jyn is not sure which is worse. 

She makes her way to med bay (not spying, just curious) and she can see Cassian through the viewport window sitting next to a woman. He’s leaning intently towards the woman, face lighter than Jyn has ever seen it. The woman is describing something to him that causes his eyes to crinkle and a small smile to form on his face.

Jyn feels the impact of that smile like a punch to the gut. Her heart clenches and she realizes that she misunderstood everything all along. Why wouldn’t he have someone waiting for him?  She can feel the hurt creep over her, the sadness the overwhelms her at the thought of all the ‘what ifs’ and the bittersweet taste of jealousy as she looks at Cassian’s love. She is beautiful, Jyn concedes. From where she is standing, there looks to be nothing that would indicate why Lieutenant Morales would be in med bay; her hair long and shining, skin so clear. Jyn sighs as she turns away from the window.

Better that she knows now, before she made a fool of herself to Cassian. 

 

-

 

Cassian does not join them the next day and Jyn decides its best that she start to distance herself from him. She changes up her schedule, asking Chirrut to work out with her before she eats. She starts to eat lunch by herself later in the afternoon in order to avoid the lunch crowd that would inevitable include Cassian and tucks herself away at night cleaning and repairing gear for the stores. She has successfully managed to avoid Cassian for a week and she is slated to leave with the Pathfinders in a few days which will get her off the base. 

She thinks he must be glad that she is the one to create the distance between them. He would be too nice to tell her that he had someone in his life and that he was not interested in her as more than a friend. Every time Jyn thinks of the awkward moment she avoided, she feels the flush of shame that she actually was going to...what...ask Cassian to be her boyfriend? She is mortified that she barely avoided that conversation and her mortification makes her angry.

She’s throwing tools haphazardly into a bin when Bodhi comes looking for her. He waits for her to finish, wiping his hands on a rag. She sighs because she knows what he is going to ask her. She has not been a good friend this week, actively avoiding everyone in her quest to avoid Cassian. She reluctantly stands up and looks over at Bodhi. “I know. I...I have just had a lot on my mind this week.”

Bodhi says, “Baze has been very sad, commenting non-stop about your absence.”

And it is the exact, perfect thing to say. Jyn throws her head back and laughs because she knows Baze would be the last person to be talkative and would probably rather die than get into any detailed personal conversations. Bodhi said it with a straight face and smiles when Jyn starts laughing. 

“Ok, Bodhi. Let’s go grab something to eat.” She knows she is not going to be able to avoid him forever and why push away her friends, her only family, over this misunderstanding.

  
  


-

 

Even though she has been actively avoiding Cassian, she decides to swing by Cassian’s room to let him know that she will be leaving in a few hours on a mission. She thinks (for the sake of their friendship, she tells herself) that she would want to know if he were leaving and maybe he would want to know. She’s carefully avoiding the truth, the truth of which is simple. She misses Cassian and just wants to see him for a moment before she leaves for a few days. 

She braces herself outside his door and takes a deep breath and knocks loudly. 

“Come in,” Cassian calls out and she pushes open his door to find Lieutenant Morales sitting on Cassian’s bed touching Cassian’s bare back, Cassian holding his shirt in his hand and what the FRACK did she just walk into?

“Jyn?” Cassian looks shocked to see her and her name comes out as question. Lieutenant Morales turns to look at Jyn, eyes curious and a small part of Jyn’s mind acknowledges that she doesn’t seem put out at the interruption.

Jyn stumbles backwards, face flushing red in horror. She wasn’t thinking. Frack, she wasn’t thinking. 

“Oh Gods, I am sorry. So sorry, I-I wanted to tell you...it doesn’t matter. So sorry to interrupt-” She has already turned around, beelining back to the door.

“Jyn, wait! Don’t go.” Cassian is calling after her.

But Jyn has already fled.

 

-

 

Jyn spends the next three days on a scouting mission with three other Pathfinders. It’s a relatively low key mission and for once, it’s an easy in and out where no one gets hurt. The problem with low key scouting missions, is the abundance of free time. Free time in which to re-enact in her mind, detail by excruciating detail, all the ways in which she messed up. Every time she thinks about it, she can feel a flush crawl up her face and wants to bury her face in her hands. Sometimes she gets angry, angry that Cassian told her to come in and put her in that position in the first place. Did he want her to see them to avoid answering any unwelcome questions, to make it clear that he was in a relationship in case she was wondering? 

As soon as she thinks those thoughts, she dismisses them as unworthy. 

Still.

Quietly, she alternates between fuming and cringing to the point that Kes, one of her teammates, spends the entire flight home trying to teasingly coax her into conversation. By the time they land back on base, Jyn is certain she is going to punch him just to shut him up. She’s ready to retreat to her quarters, lick her wounds and thinks the past few days can’t get any worse.

But of course they do.

Walking down the ramp, Jyn groans when she sees Cassian standing on the tarmac, clearly waiting for her. She just can’t do this, not right now. She smiles tightly at him and continues walking, hitching her pack over her shoulder. Cassian walks in step with her, not saying anything. 

He is silent the whole way and when they reach her quarters, she turns to him, “Hey, great chat. I’m gonna do my debrief and turn in so I will catch you around. Ok.”

Cassian presses his lips together, step closer and she just wishes he would back up a bit. Having him so close to her makes her wish for things she can’t have and it makes her sad, wistful. She takes a step back and he presses forward, “What the hell, Cassian? I am tired so if you have something to say, say it.”

“You left before I had a chance to explain, to-”

She cuts him off, scoffing,” What’s there to explain? You were with your girlfriend, I walked in when I shouldn’t have, although you could have-”

“Wait, what? My girlfriend?” Somehow Cassian has managed to step even closer and she really,  _ really _ wishes he would move back. “Are you talking about Maria?”

Maria, her name is Maria. 

Jyn shrugs, “Sure, I don’t know her name. We haven’t met.”

“Jyn, no, Jyn, she’s not my girlfriend. Kriff-” Cassian steps back and wipes his hand over his face. He looks back up at her, “Can I come inside, to explain?”

Jyn hesitates, doesn’t really want to sit through this conversation. She knows it’s only going to bring her discomfort and probably a little bit of pain. Ok, a lot of pain. She shifts her feet hoping that Cassian would get the hint but he hasn’t moved an inch. She finally sighs, “Yeah, ok, come in.”  

She keys her code, tiredly and lets herself in, dropping her pack on the floor and pulling her scarf from around her neck. She tosses it on the side table that serves as her desk and turns to lean against it, arms crossed.  

Cassian has followed her and is running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around , haven’t reached out to you. It’s just….it’s just Maria coming back was a surprise and...there were alot of things I had to discuss with her. She didn’t know about Scarif, that I was there...and I, I was showing her my injuries when you saw us together.”

Jyn is watching him and she knows she should say something but the small, jealous part of her rears its head and she is swamped with a deep envy that Maria gets to share with Cassian his thoughts and feelings about Scarif when she herself so desperately wants to talk to him about the experience. In the few months since Scarif, they never once spoke about what happened that day. She is consumed with both jealousy and sadness and it twists inside of her leaving her speechless.

Cassian continues, watching her carefully, “Jyn. Maria is an Intelligence agent. She’s been embedded so deep in the Empire that she didn’t have all the details on...Jedha and Alderaan...and everything in the past year. I wanted to spend time with her, let her know what was going on.”

Jyn shrugs, feigning a nonchalance she doesn’t feel, “Of course. You care about her, she means something to you so of course you want to spend time with her. Cassian, I don’t understand why you feel like you need to explain this to me.”

“Don’t you?”

Jyn glares at him, “You don’t have to explain to me why you were shirtless in your room with your girlfriend on your bed.”

Cassian sighs, “Jyn, she’s not my girlfriend. Maria and I, we’re not...not together like that. I was her contact while she was undercover and Draven pulled me out after six months. He put in someone else to be her contact and that person wound up dead.”

Cassian starts to shift slowly, “Once we discovered he was dead, we assumed we had also lost Maria. She’s been off the grid for the past four months, we’ve had no contact until she suddenly shows up alive. We didn’t have a blip on her, that’s how good she is, and I-I am grateful she’s alive.”

The room is so quiet after he stops speaking, Jyn is convinced he can hear her heart racing. “Why are you telling me this?”

For the first time since this conversation started, Cassian looks unsure. “I wanted you to know...Maria told me after you left that I should go and find you...that you would assume that she and I were...together. And we’re not...not like that. Yes, she means something to me but it’s different than what you mean to me.”

Jyn is so unsure, she doesn’t know what he is saying to her. She wants to believe what Cassian is saying to her but after Scarif he never mentioned...really never talked to her about anything important at all. She doesn’t know what to think and the courage she had gathered to talk to him weeks ago, has long since fled.

“Cassian, I don’t...I don’t know what you’re saying to me. I don’t understand.”

He steps closer, “I’m saying that Maria coming back is a reminder that you and I have wasted too much time already. I’m saying that you and I should say what we mean while we still can. I’m saying that we should give you and I a chance. I’m saying that you and I are something more.”

Jyn stares at Cassian, his eyes on her dark and intent. He steps forward and brushes a lock of hair off of her forehead. “Jyn, I didn’t realize how it may seem to you, how it would look spending so much time with her. She wondered if you were the woman...the woman I broke all the rules for and if you were were worth breaking those rules for. She made me realize, not only how important you are to me, but for you to be that upset, that I must be very important to you.”

Jyn breathes, “You are. So important to me Cassian, and I have been...upset thinking that I read things wrong between us, that you had someone else waiting for you. I assumed so much.”

“I’m sorry, Jyn. I didn’t mean to hurt you or to make you believe that I didn’t care about you, that I didn’t want this…”

He kisses her first, when the silence stretches between them.   
  
She lets him too.   
  
She opens her mouth with a gasp, his teeth skirting over her lip as she presses herself closer to him.   
  
He takes his time and she doesn’t push, letting her hand slide against the back of his neck and curling her fingers in the hair that rest against the nape.   
  
“You’re important to me,” he says into her mouth, and she swallows the words, one by one, her lip pressing into his lip. He makes this sound, halfway between growl and a moan and she steps back, breaking the contact.“You’re important to me,” he says again.   


  
She is brave enough to believe him.   
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to [melanoradrood](http://melanoradrood.tumblr.com/) who helped me pick this apart and talk me through it. Love you!
> 
> Say hi on tumblr anytime [leaiorganas](https://leaiorganas.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
